Search age:

Search in:

NBC crew freed after gun battle

NBC News correspondent Richard Engel and his four-member crew have been freed unharmed after being kidnapped inside Syria on Thursday.

The journalists were released on Monday following a gun battle between their captors and Syrian rebels, NBC said. They crossed safely back into Turkey.

Appearing on the Today show, Engel, 39, said his captors were from the regime-backed militia known as shabiha.

The kidnappers wanted to exchange them for four Iranian agents and two Lebanese shabiha members who had been captured by the rebels, Engel said. That plan was thwarted when the kidnappers unwittingly drove into a rebel checkpoint.

Advertisement

'' I am very happy that we're able to do this live shot this morning,'' Engel told Today.

He said he, producer Ghazi Balkiz, cameraman John Kooistra and two other crew members were driving through what they thought was a rebel-held area in Syria when they were ambushed.

Engel, Balkiz and Kooistra, who appeared together on Today, said they were subjected to ''psychological torture''.